Firearms such as center fire pistols often utilize a barrel and a slide for operation of the firearm, including the ejection of a spent cartridge casing from the firearm. Typically, these firearms operate with an “out of battery delay” during the recoil movement of the barrel and slide, and utilize a mechanical or gas-type delay to unlock the movement of the slide from the barrel.
A popular approach to unlocking the slide from the barrel during recoil movement utilizes a tilting barrel design, which has locking lugs on the barrel that engage locking lugs on the slide, and when the barrel is cammed or moved upward these lugs engage each other to create a locked breech. Under firing recoil movement, the slide and barrel are driven rearward and a lower pivot link of the barrel pulls the barrel away from the slide in a motion that tilts the muzzle end of the barrel upward and disengages the locking lugs of the barrel and slide to permit the slide to continue rearward movement to eject the spent casing. The tilting barrel design for producing the out-of-battery delay is by far the most common approach.
The current inventors have recognized that the tilting barrel approach has several shortcomings, including reduced accuracy due at least in part to the fact that, during recoil, the tilting movement of the barrel begins almost immediately. Since the sights of the firearm are located on the slide, any movement of the slide before the projectile leaves the barrel muzzle can cause problems with targeting accuracy. Further, the current inventors have realized that the tilting barrel approach can cause problems in the design and production of the firearm, as the compound tilting and shifting movement of the barrel from the locked position to the unlocked position can make it difficult to control the fit of the barrel to the slide.
Moreover, the current inventors recognized that the tilting motion of the barrel causes the cartridge to also move up and down across the breech face, which complicates the design and operation of the extractor since the extractor must remove the cartridge casing from the barrel chamber as the rim of the casing is moving downwardly, which ultimately affects the purchase that the extractor is able to achieve with the rim of the case. As a result, the location of the extractor is lower on the breech face which in turn complicates the loading movement of a cartridge from the magazine to the barrel chamber.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a firearm that provides alternative to the tilting barrel design to improve accuracy. In this regard, various embodiments of the present disclosure substantially fulfill at least some of these needs. In this respect, certain embodiments of the firearm or methods according to the present disclosure substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus and method that provides a linear recoil movement of the barrel while still providing the desired out-of-battery delay, thereby improving accuracy, robustness, and reduction in complexity.